The Giant Amsinckia of Union City

 This giant Amsinckia flower is stretched oout over five or six stories overlooking a play ground in Union City near the BART station. Kudos to the artist!

Who painted this amazing mural?

It was Mona Caron. Check her on Facebook and on Laughing Squid.

The Island of Rare Fruits and Trees

A Pleasure Island for Plant Nuts

Today we discovered a garden treasure in Fremont in a place that was so very unexpected. This garden is only a few miles from home.  It is on a peninsula, almost an island, in our local quarry lakes.  The garden, even in January, was full of bright colors, odd shapes, strange flowers, exotic plants, fruits, and a promise of free samples. Just the list of conifers takes up 8 pages. Wow.

I was as excited as Pinocchio when he first saw Pleasure Island, without the dire consequences (donkey ears) that Pinocchio's friends suffered.

Considering Cascades

From a 1931 picture from
the Friends of the Cleveland Cascade.
The cascades were lit
with different colors of light.

I recently ran across a reference to the Cleveland Cascade. It is not in Cleveland, but is a water work that cascades down a portion of too-steep-for-cars Cleveland Street in Oakland. I found this reference through a strange series of searches from tulips, to the California Nursery Company spring flowering bulbs shows, to Howard Gilkey who designed Oakland flower shows, and finally to the Cleveland Cascades.

We went over to see the Cleveland Cascade today. Unfortunately the basins were all removed and so now there are just steps. Lots of people are still enjoying the steps as their daily exercise. It sure beats the gym.

Trees of Katie Elder

Earlier this year we watched The Sons of Katie Elder. It was a great classic Western. In the final shoot-out, however, the forest really stole the show. The trees were huge and the roots gnarly. They were clustered at water's edge and (in the movie) growing near a triple waterfall. Surely this place must be famous. The movie poster, here, integrates the trees into the action. WOW!

Where is that forest and what kind of trees are they? Time for some forestry forensics!

Sequoiadendron giganteum...Who named it first?

"Hermit and Burnt Tree" from Calisphere.

The "Big Tree" has had many names and there is much interesting controversy over how it was named and claimed. This is but one of many articles that I have found in google books and Internet Archive and other archives.

What I have read elsewhere is that the English scooped the Californians in describing the tree now known as Sequoiadenron giganteum. To the Americans it must have seemed very nervy and audacious when Dr. Lindley named our great tree after one of the English military greats, the Duke of Wellington. How much sense did that make? Apparently it's ok if you are the first one out of the gate. But not surprisingly there was a bit of fallout and controversy. And as you know, it didn't stick, except in the U.K. where you can still see signs for the "Wellingtonia".

Stripy Rainbow Tulips at Holland's flower garden, the Keukenof

At an early age, I must have decided that flowers
could be stripy rainbow colors.
Orbiting above the flower and the earth,
I think it might be John Glenn,
also in rainbow color.
Our TVs were black and white
but our imagination was in color.

Keukenof is world famous for its spring flowering bulb displays. Their English landscape style garden near Amsterdam is huge. It takes a couple of hours to see the gardens.

In my family, flowers are not necessarily everyone's favorite thing to look at in large quantities, but luckily it was Mother's Day when we visited. And so I was able to cash in on that happy circumstance. I am so glad we went. It was the last weekend they were open to the public and many of the beds had already finished up. There was still an amazing display of flowers.

Visiting Our East Bay Trees...cheaply

Magnolia from Strybing Arboretum

I like to go to gardens all the time. It can get expensive. I like to be able to pop in frequently for a few mins at a local garden as if it were mine. And when travelling, I like to go to whatever garden or arboretum I find.

I am facing a renewal of my UC Bot Garden membership and am weighing the plusses and minuses of their different levels. This is beginning to hurt my head trying to figure this out. I may have to get out the spreadsheet to help decide what is the best way to visit gardens (and possibly museums) cheaply.